In the next couple of weeks, Ardmore Baptist Church will begin the annual process of nominating Deacons. Every year, we prayerfully ask, “Whom is God calling to serve?” This year, I hope we might ask an even deeper question: “Whom is God inviting into a journey of transformation?”

This incoming class of Deacons (the 2027-2029 cohort) will experience a new pathway of Deacon leadership that I have been prayerfully working on for over a year. Beginning in January, our new Deacon class will embark on a three-year experience we are calling The Emmaus Way. Inspired by Luke 24, this journey remembers two disciples walking the road to Emmaus, unaware that the risen Christ was beside them. Along the way, Jesus listened, taught, challenged, and ultimately transformed them. By the end of the journey, they were not simply better informed—they were different people. Their hearts burned within them because they had encountered the living Christ together.

That is our prayer for every Deacon.

The Emmaus Way is much more than leadership training. It is a three-year pilgrimage of spiritual formation, friendship, discernment, and leadership development. Together, Deacons will retreat, pray, read, reflect, share meals, practice spiritual disciplines, and learn from faithful Christian leaders. They will wrestle with Scripture, cultivate a Rule of Life, and discover that healthy leadership begins not with what we accomplish for God, but with the kind of people we are becoming in Christ.

One of my deepest hopes for Ardmore is that we become a church known not merely for having capable leaders, but for having Christlike leaders. We certainly need people with wisdom, organizational ability, and sound judgment. But the church needs something even more: women and men whose lives are marked by humility, prayerfulness, courage, compassion, and attentiveness to the Holy Spirit. As we often say on our staff, who we are becoming matters as much as what we are doing.

So, as you prayerfully consider whom to nominate, I invite you to look beyond availability, popularity, or professional success. Instead, ask: Who is hungry to grow? Who demonstrates a teachable spirit? Who longs to walk more closely with Jesus? Who might help others recognize Christ’s presence simply by the way they live?

Perhaps God is placing someone’s name on your heart. Perhaps, unexpectedly, it is your own.

May we listen well to the Spirit together. I cannot wait to see where Christ leads us on this road.

Grace and peace,

Rev. Dr. Tyler Tankersley